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 Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:53 pm
"A reindeer?" She sputtered, her cheeks colouring a brilliant shade of pink, quite like her hair had been. "Who looks like a reindeer? At least I don't look like a great old crow." She huffed, crossing her arms. They fell to her sides as her shoes were replaced by familiar gray boots, and she smiled down at them.
"Thank you, Howl-slime?! No! Really, Howl, don't you dare!" She snapped at him, her cheeks going red, but not because of embarrassment. "If you slime, I will not speak to you, I swear it! You know I have absolutely no patience for your tantrums. Isn't it enough that I feel bad?"
She took his hand despite the scolding, stalking off after him.
"I trust the castle is in complete disrepair and coated in dirt." She scoffed, the thought of slime leading her immediately to Howl's less than cleanly tendencies. "Hmph. I'll have to clean as soon as I get there." She could and would not, after all, live in a messy house.
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Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 9:39 am
"I suppose your observation is correct," Howl mused. "I, like a crow, like to correct attractive things. You of course, are the prize." He kissed her cheek. It would take getting used to, living with her again. He had missed her so much, he didn't figure he would mind that she was deadfully nosy, horribly bossy, or even apallingly clean.
"Woe! My wife, after over a month (I lost count after thirty days, Sophie, you wouldn't believe how your absence affects the calendar) of not seeing or hearing from her, threatens not to speak to me!" He leaned his head against her shoulder and sulked.
"Typical. I save you yet again, and the first thing you want to do is tidy up. No 'Alright, I'll spend time with my poor, neglected husband' or 'I love you Howl, and I'm so very sorry, I'll never do that again, and I know you must have worked so very hard to try and find me, so when we get home we'll have hot chocolate!'"
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 7:10 am
"We can't have hot chocolate if there aren't any clean mugs, and I highly doubt that there are. And don't you go summoning any either, Howl." She brushed a few strands of wayward black hair off her cheek, but didn't shove him off as they headed for wherever it was that Howl was keeping his castle.
"If you keep simply summoning mugs, you'll never be rid of the damn things, and we certainly don't have the room to keep all of them. No, I'll definitely be tidying up when we get to the castle." She nodded determinedly, scanning the sky for any sign of it.
"Maybe when everything's clean we can sit by the fire with a drink and have a nice visit with Calcifer." She smiled cheerfully.
She had known that she'd missed them, living away from her family, but now it came roaring forward like a full force hurricane and slapped her in the face. Despite him being horrible and cowardly and a great sulky child, she..had definitely missed Howl.
Her steps slowed and she lay her head against his, smiling to herself. Even his whining was somehow comforting, although she was not in any great hurry to tell him that. If she did, she was sure he would do it just because he thought it made her feel better.
"Anyhow, you're not neglected." She added in, kissing the top of his head. "You've got Calcifer and the rest of your family looking after you; although, I'm not surprised if they couldn't handle you."
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:10 am
Howl was strangely silent the rest of the way there. No, he couldn't tell her what had happened between he and his family. He couldn't tell her that she was right, they couldn't handle him. She wouldn't believe him, she would think he was playing for attention. "You might be surprised," he said. "I haven't been in the castle much for the past month. Spent it looking for you." Or moping at someone. Or getting drunk. Sophie didn't need to know that part.
He led her carefully inside the slightly hovering castle, looking around. "Worse than I thought," he mused. It certainly wasn't as messy as it had been when Sophie had originally come to the castle. Without anyone to tease, Howl seemed to have stopped caring. Or perhaps, without someone to clean up after him, he had failed to see the point. Or maybe--maybe he had simply been too busy worrying and looking for Sophie, that nothing else had mattered. Of course, that didn't mean he had spent any time cleaning. There were spells littering the floor, a jacket or two, muddy footprints had trailed across the room.
"Let's have hot chocolate first, clean later," he said. "Please."
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:50 am
Perhaps it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was still bad. Sophie stared in horror at the muddy footprints on her floor (For despite whatever Howl believed, the entire castle did not belong to him, and Sophie had claimed much of the floors as her domain.) and then at the spells and jackets that lay with them.
"Good grief, Howl! I should hope if I really do die you would have the good sense to remember that this upsets me. Really, could you not hang up your clothes? You there!" She barked at the jackets, two angry spots of colour rising on her cheeks. "What do you think you're doing on the floor, lying like a great lump? Get up, get up!" She waved her hands, bullying the poor coats into slinking across the floor, up the wall, and onto the coat hook.
"And you had better stay there." She huffed, forgetting all about Howl's invitation to hot chocolate. Hands on her hips, she looked around, but could not identify even the handle of a mop in the castle.
"Aren't there cleaning supplies in here, Howl? Oh, goodness gracious, this is unacceptable. Look at all the cob webs." She scowled at them, then turned her gaze to Howl.
"Howl, darling, where's the mop?" She was surprisingly sweet as she asked this, although it was perhaps because she wanted something from him. "This place needs a good scrub down, that's what."
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 10:25 am
"If you really do die, I don't think I'll live long enough to think about that," Howl muttered. "You really must let me die before you do, Sophie. I don't know what I'd do without you." Yes, he did know. He'd turn into a sloppy, crying mess. A sloppy, drunken, crying mess. "So really, Sophie. You're not allowed to die," he added, almost sternly. "Not until I do."
He sighed and shook his head. "I could just vanish everything," he muttered, waving a hand. The room was suddenly spotless. He handed her a mop and bucket, smirking. "Now, how about that hot chocolate? We can sit by the fire, talk, catch up. I haven't had a hot drink in over a month, Sophie," he said. "I'm wasting away!" It wasn't a lie, not exactly. The wizard had always been thin, but he certainly had lost weight through the last month. He had no intention of telling Sophie everything that had happened while she'd been gone. He wasn't nearly as wicked as she was.
"So, how about that hot chocolate? The castle's clean..." he tried persuading her. "Please, Sophie?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:09 pm
"Selfish." She said softly, looking over at him. "Do you really want me to have to deal with that...?"
She turned to head off on a search for the mop, however Howl quickly proved that pointless. He cleaned the room with a wave of his hand, which infuriated her to no end.
"If you could just clean it, why didn't you do that in the first place- lazy, incorrigable-" She sighed, and took the mop and bucket, glaring at him.
"Fine." She huffed, flipping hair out of her face with a toss of her head. "You are wasting away. Haven't you been eating? None of this hot chocolate nonsense. I'm going to cook you a good meal. You clearly haven't had one in forever-"
One would think that Sophie would relent and just sit with her husband; but, she was not Sophie if she wasn't fussing. She was more inclined to boss and bother Howl than she was to snuggle down with him, especially when there was work of some sort to be done.
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:32 pm
"Selfish?" Howl repeated, looking injured. "You're the one who's selfish. Pretending to be dead and playing on a pretense and insulting me!" He huffed at her. "You clearly weren't thinking about my feelings! What should it matter to you that I haven't been home long enough to do a simple spell? Or that I gave magic up entirely until I decided to search for you, which I have been doing, for two weeks, without stopping to sleep, eat, or even shower."
He paused, crossing his arms. "But you didn't think about that, did you? When you agreed to the spell? You didn't think that it would upset me, did you? I tried to join you. Being hungry didn't help. Drinking myself senseless didn't help. Lance caught me."
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:08 pm
Hearing what had happened...well, it was like a slap in the face. Sophie froze, staring at Howl. Slowly, she began to twist the mop in her hands, looking down at the floor before finally setting it down.
"I didn't agree to all of it, Howl-" She wrung her hands. "I didn't agree to the death thing. And...and I was afraid. It was stupid, and I know that, but I just..." She pulled her hands through her hair, moving closer to her husband.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I'm just trying to forget that it ever happened...I want us to go back to normal..." Tentatively, she reached out and put her arms around Howl, holding him close.
"...you haven't showered for two weeks?" She couldn't help but ask in a quiet voice, not daring to breathe in. She hadn't noticed, really, but then, she hadn't been paying much attention to Howl's scent. "No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to ask about anything. Let's just make that hot chocolate and the food, okay?" She fidgeted. "I meant what I said about you eating. Even if you are angry with me..."
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 11:45 pm
"You were afraid?" Howl snorted. "I was afraid. Afraid I'd lost you. You hadn't replied to my letters in months, and when I did come to see you, you were always too busy. I thought you were avoiding me. So I stopped coming after the fifth or sixth time. I asked Kali for help, to teach me how to win your heart back. I didn't know why, even after so many dates and as much time as I'd spent with you, you would avoid me. I was finally getting the courage to come see you and propose--and I did invite you to that Valentines thing, but you never showed up. I waited and waited, until everyone else was gone. I was going to propose, then, too."
He crossed his arms and rose an eyebrow at her. "Oh, you didn't agree to the death thing. So what were they supposed to tell me, while you were parading around as some disgusting pink haired--" he swore in welsh and seemed to recover. "I don't want to forget," he muttered, wrapping arms around Sophie. "If you ever go missing again, I'll know just how to find you. Worst looking girl on the street, that's my Sophie." He paused and grinned at her. "Do you really think I'd go two weeks without a shower for you? There are magical ways of doing things."
He led her to his couch and pulled her down next to him. He summoned two mugs of hot chocolate--topped with whipped cream, and handed one to her. "No, don't get up. I'm still reassuring myself you're real. You'll stay where I can see you."
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